In a scenario where droughts are becoming more frequent and intense, promoting more efficient water use is essential. And in this context, Facsa continues to make progress on SIRERA, the innovation project that seeks to encourage the reuse of wastewater from wastewater treatment plants for use in the agricultural industry.
The project, which is being developed in the Vila-real Irrigation Community with the support of EPSAR, has recently completed the installation of its pilot and the first irrigation campaigns with reclaimed water, under a continuous monitoring system that allows real-time analysis of water quality, soil behavior and crop response.
Among the key advances, the project has successfully tested a system that adds small doses of active oxygen to the water before application in the field. This improvement keeps the water cleaner, prevents drip irrigation from clogging, and promotes better root development in crops. In addition, subsurface drip irrigation is being used, which helps to make better use of every drop and reduces losses due to evaporation. Furthermore, the pilot project will incorporate solar panels installed above the crops, which will generate the energy needed for the system and create shaded areas to protect the plants from high temperatures.
In parallel, a network of sensors and digital tools has been deployed to automatically adjust irrigation and fertilization doses. These advances consolidate a line of work that already demonstrated, in the previous DIFERA project, the possibility of using up to 80% reclaimed water in citrus fertigation without affecting production.
SIRERA, led by Facsa, includes the participation of Giditek, La Unió Llauradora i Ramadera, the Valencian Institute of Agricultural Research (IVIA), the Jaume I University of Castelló (UJI), and Heliotec. With a duration of 25 months and a budget of €958,000, the initiative advances towards a model of smart, sustainable agriculture adapted to climate change and is funded by the European Union through the ERDF Valencian Community 2021-2027 Program and IVACE+i Innovation.
Funded by the European Union under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Program Comunitat Valenciana 2021-2027 through the Strategic Cooperation Projects program, with reference INNEST/2024/363, and has a total budget of 193,437.98 euros, and an aid granted for the amount of 77,375.20 euros from the Valencian Institute of Competitiveness and Innovation – IVACE+i Innovation.
